Isle of Wight Steam Railway - Ferry Problem

I feel sorry for the Isle of Wight Railway. Today four of us were intending to travel on the Steam Railway but on arriving at Wightlinks Portsmouth terminal, the £32 car day return turned out to be over £70 today due to 'new policies' according to the staff. Well sorry but I do not allow any company to treat me in this fashion, so we did not travel and Wightlink lost custom as well as the Steam Railway its fares and a resturant our food out costs.


I wonder how many others will also not put up with Wightlink's attitude and go elsewhere but its a shame the Steam Railway which I like and admire will lose out as will other Island attractions. We spent over £100 instead on the mainland (I took us to Swanage instead)


Brian

 

If the fare was £70, what made you expect to pay £32?

 

Whatever fare had been expected, £70 day return for a car and passengers seems outrageous. However, IoW has a good bus and electric train network, which I always use for my trips to the excellent IoW steam railway. You can get a reasonable fare from Portsmouth as a foot passenger.

John

 

Try using Stena Line!

A day trip from Belfast - Stranraer will currently cost you a hefty £145 (min) for a car + 4 passengers!


Keith

 

The cheapest fare that Wightlink do is a Super Saver Day Return which is currently £34.50 for a car and four adults. This fare has got to be booked in advance though, which is presumably why, if you hadn't done that, you were quoted the price of whichever of their various turn-up-and-go fares applied to the sailing you wanted to go on.

I suppose the £34.50 return isn't bad when you consider the cost of four people going on the FastCat passenger ferry at about £14.00 each return.

Does seem a lot of money though, £60+... it's only the Isle of Wight - what's that 5 or 6 miles fom Portsmouth? That makes First Great Western's fares seem like a bargain. Brittany Ferries do a day return from Portsmouth to St.Malo for £20 each return plus £25 return for the car, so that wouldn't have cost you that much more for a far longer journey on a much bigger ship, with the added bonus of a greater opportunity to get sea sick!

Cheers

Andrew

 

I asked earlier about why burmister was expecting to pay £32. If it was because that was the fare quoted online, those fares apply to online bookings only. I know this to my cost. One day I decided to buy my ticket for the forthcoming Saturday from the Wightlink ticket office rather than online as I normally do. It was nearly £20 dearer from the ticket office than it would have been online. I didn't make that mistake again. Also, don't try asking for a table of fares at the Wightlink office because no such thing seems to exist. "It would be too complicated," the woman said.

Clearly Wightlink's pricing policy is designed to encourage everyone to book online, in advance.

 

Living on the island, complaints about ferry fares are nothing new - i doubt there are many editions of the local paper that haven't had at least one letter moaning about it. At the moment however, they are arguably more justified with a lot of long awaited (and highly costly) improvements in the coming years, on Wightlink anyway.

Now, i know thats not much comfort for our 'overseas' visitors, but personally i'd suggest leaving your car on the mainland if you can and getting the 'cat' or hovercraft across - you can use Island Line to get to the steam railway in 30mins from Portsmouth, while the island's bus company Southern Vectis (due to celebrate its 80th birthday next may at the railway, incidentally) runs probably the best rural bus system in the country by some margin, doing away with the need for a car in most cases. What 'is' scandalous is the damage being done to the superb service of said company by our hopeless tory council... but thats another story.

I hope you return soon more successfully, but i'd suggest letting the catamaran and tube train take the strain!

Chris

 

If ever there was a case for a road bridge I think it has just been made.
Lymington to the Island would not involve a long span.

 

I think building a fixed link to undercut the ferries would be a huge folly, as it would likely just encourage more people to bring their cars on day trips, while removing one of the main things people enjoy about coming here (once they've got over the prices..). Seeing as island roads cant handle the number of cars, lorries and coaches there are now, i think the only fixed link that could've worked is one of the solent tunnel schemes for railways, but i cant imagine that ever happening now..

Chris

 

Well something ought to be done, being an Island is no excuse for Ferry companies to be taking the p**s pricewise fully in the knowledge they have no real competition for Transport to/from the Island, granted you have a point about the Islands roads but some competition to make those greedy companies sweat woulden't go amiss.

People visiting the Island in numbers is the difference between prosperity and bankruptcy for the IOWSR and many other touris attractions, the fact the Ferries have a huge say in the economy of the place is something that needs to be kept in mind.

Slightly off topic, it does seem strange that despite all the industrial wonders to be created throughout Britain through the last two centuries that no one has sucessfully created a link (bridge or tunnel) between the Island and Mainland.

 

A bridge to the IoW would have to be very high in view of the Solent being busy with sea traffic - and hence there would be environmental/ visual amenity issues. It would be hard to avoid it being from Portsmouth because that is where most traffic to and from IoW passes. A tunnel would cost an awful lot; a few bank directors' Christmas bonuses even. Monopolies need to be regulated - or does that make me a bit of a socialist?

John

 

a bridge would have to be at the Lymington end I should think as its narrower and less busy for big ships.A tunnel wouldnt be THAT dear. I know the sea is a different kettle of...well fish but here they built a tunnel under the river Lee in Cork Harbour by dredging a trench and dropping precast concrete tunnel sections into it.They are currently doing the same on the Shannon Estuary (the biggest river in the british Isles).Both have ships passing over them

If the will was there either would be do-able, I just wonder if its a a good idea though.

 

I can confidently say there is no will at all for a fixed link on the Island. As annoying as high ferry prices are, they are the price you pay for a privatised, inherently inneficient service that requires several times more capacity during the summer than the rest of the year and receives no subsidy.

Of course, when talking about a road bridge or road tunnel as an alternative, its important to remember the few island A-roads are only comparable to most B-roads on the mainland, and suffer badly as it is from the number of coaches and lorries coming over. Without ferries providing a limit on them, the roads simply couldnt cope.

Chris

 

There were schemes talked about in Victorian times, but all seemed to run out of limited funds before any building started.

 

There is most definitely a strong and growing demand for a fixed link now. The ferries have getting ever more expensive and less & less reliable. Yes there are some against a fixed link and that will always be the case but more people see that the island is slowly dying because of the strangle hold the ferry companies have.

 

They only seem interested in milking their captive audience, no sense of reasonability towards the lifeline for Island residents.

 

If there was a bridge, I wonder how much the tolls would have to be.

 

I was always led to believe the islanders don’t want a bridge due to the increase in road traffic.

 

I would hope a fraction of the Ferry fares.

 

The Island is in a slow decline through lack of visitors, many potential visitors are put of by the sky high fares. True the roads are unable to cope with even the winter levels of traffic but something has to change.